Angular distributions of sputtered atoms for low-energy nitrogen irradiation of silicon

We studied the angular distributions of silicon and nitrogen atoms emitted from a Si target subjected to reactive sputtering by N ₂ ⁺ ions at primary energies of 0.5 and 2keV. The composition of the deposited material does not depend strongly on the substrate position. From a comparison with nonreactive sputtering, we show that the observed shift of the Si angular distribution is mainly due to the contribution of collision events occurring in the first monolayer. Contrary to the case of noble gas ions, the sharpness of the Si distribution depends on the N ₂ ⁺ energy. The behavior of the differential sputtering yield of silicon indicates that this effect is likely to be due to a loss of recoil atoms out of the preferential direction. A possible explanation of the observed phenomena consists in assuming an anisotropic emission of Si _x N _y radicals. This hypothesis is very attractive as it could satisfactorily explain the similarity we observed between the angular distributions of silicon and nitrogen.